Golf and Capers

Ist May 2011 Sunday

Yesterday we made a U-turn out of stationary Exeter traffic and headed out toDartmoor for our walk instead. After Moretonhampstead and an unscheduled stop for peppery cheese straws we drove past tall gates and a sign that said Bovey Castle.

‘Let’s go there,’ I said.

My husband turned around and we found ourselves in huge and peaceful park which was actually a golf course. We left the car at the back of the hotel, along with rows of golf carts and wandered all over the fairways fringed with bluebell woods and watched bunny rabbits bounding into the gorse bushes, their white scuts flashing. Not a single golfer in sight the whole time.

‘Maybe we should take up golf,’ said my husband.

‘Hmm - expensive,’ I said.

I’d rather take in the view without a club in my hand and the stress of losing a ball in the bunker. Or hitting a rabbit.

Today we avoided the traffic and walked into town in spitting rain, heading for the food festival. We took shelter, along with a few hundred others, in the marquees set up in the park and sampled chilli jam and balsamic vingears, gluten free brownies and sparkling elderflower juice in tiny plastic cups. I bought a special offer of organic sausages for Saturday’s BBQ - three packs for £10. We watched a chef demonstrating how to rescue a bowl of split mayonnaise with a second egg. We shared a butternut squash and buffalo mozzarella cheese pie on a paper plate, listening to two young men with guitars and amplifiers, strumming their hearts out. When my stamina ran out we strolled back home licking ice creams - clotted cream vanilla for my husband and strawberry for me. It felt like we’d had a day at the fair.

Much later while my husband showered off allotment mud I made us a soft boiled egg salad with anchovies and giant capers - the size of grapes - that I bought back from Portugal last year for my husband’s Christmas stocking. I didn’t know then that he wouldn’t remember their name. But I know now that it doesn’t stop him enjoying their flavour.